Fabrication of dissolving microneedles for transdermal delivery of protein and peptide drugs: polymer materials and solvent casting micromoulding method

Abstract

Proteins and peptides are rapidly developing pharmaceutical products and are expected to continue growing in the future. However, due to their nature, their delivery is often limited to injection, with drawbacks such as pain and needle waste. To overcome these limitations, microneedles technology is developed to deliver protein and peptide drugs through the skin. One type of microneedles, known as dissolving microneedles, has been extensively studied for delivering various proteins and peptides, including ovalbumin, insulin, bovine serum albumin, polymyxin B, vancomycin, and bevacizumab. This article discusses polymer materials used for fabricating dissolving microneedles, which are poly(vinylpyrrolidone), hyaluronic acid, poly(vinyl alcohol), carboxymethylcellulose, Gantrez^TM, as well as other biopolymers like pullulan and ulvan. The paper is focused solely on solvent casting micromoulding method for fabricating dissolving microneedles containing proteins and peptides, which will be divided into one-step and two-step casting micromoulding. Additionally, future considerations in the market plan for dissolving microneedles are discussed in this article.

Keywords:

• Dissolving microneedles
• proteins and peptides
• polymer materials
• micromoulding
• transdermal drug delivery

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Rr. Almiera Cindakara for her assistance in creating the illustrations in this paper and Brilivia Joan Wongso for correcting the grammatical error. The authors also thank Indonesian Endownment Fund for Education (Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan/LPDP Indonesia) for funding the study.

Authors’ contributions

Idea and conceptualisation: Rr. Kirana Andranilla, Delly Ramadon, Qonita Kurnia Anjani; material preparation, data collection, and analysis: Rr. Kirana Andranilla; writing- original draft preparation: Rr. Kirana Andranilla, writing- review and editing: Delly Ramadon, Qonita Kurnia Anjani, Pietradewi Hartrianti; critical review: Ryan F. Donnelly and Delly Ramadon. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study is supported by the Indonesian Endowment Fund for Education (Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan/LPDP Indonesia) scholarship under Grant 202108113207455.